All Blacks selectors sprung two surprises in the World Cup squad announced on Sunday with the recall of Andy Ellis and Sione Lauaki at the expense of Piri Weepu and Troy Flavell. Richie McCaw will captain the squad in which selectors have gone for a 16 forwards, 14 backs split, but only named a 29-man squad.
It was bad-tempered and it was close, but the Blue Bulls held off Western Province to win 26-17 in a Absa Currie Cup rugby match at Newlands on Saturday. A dubious decision by the television official allowing a Derick Kuün try when it appeared as if he had lost the ball forward.
James Anderson took a Test-best five for 42 on his return to the side to give England the advantage over India in their series opener at Lord’s on Saturday. England were 77 for two in their second innings — a lead of 174 — at stumps on the third day after India had collapsed to 201 all out.
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, a former televangelist who helped lead a huge television ministry before its collapse in a sex and corruption scandal, has died, her website reported on Saturday. Messner died on Friday at age 65 after a long battle with cancer.
India’s first female President, Pratibha Patil, savoured her election win on Sunday as supporters hailed the victory as a step forward for women. The 72-year-old lawyer defeated Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat by a landslide on Saturday.
Former president FW De Klerk ”knew nothing” about the attempt on Frank Chikane’s life, according to one of the accused in the case, General Johann van der Merwe. Media reports said that former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and Van der Merwe were angry at having to bear the blame for crimes committed in the apartheid era
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan urged African leaders on Sunday to practise good governance and democracy to rebuild the continent, and told the world’s rich nations to keep their promises of aid. ”It is vital that Africa lead its own development process,” he told a gathering at the fifth annual Nelson Mandela lecture.
Irishman Padraig Harrington beat Sergio Garcia of Spain by one stroke in a four-hole British Open play-off on Sunday to land his maiden victory in a major and the first by a European for eight years. Harrington (35) completed the extra holes in 15 shots (level par) after the two Ryder Cup colleagues had finished the championship locked together on seven-under 277.
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso won a wet and wild European Grand Prix on Sunday to cut championship-leading teammate Lewis Hamilton’s lead to just two points. While Spain’s double world champion celebrated his third victory of the season, after a wheel-banging thrust past Ferrari’s Felipe Massa just four laps from the finish, Hamilton’s run of nine podiums in a row came to an end.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Prime Minister, secured a landslide election triumph on Sunday night, winning a second five-year term with nearly half of the national vote after being forced by veiled threats of a military overthrow to call an early ballot.